Day of Remembrance of the Equal-to-the-Apostles Grand Prince Vladimir. Metropolitan Alexander celebrated the Liturgy at the Representative Office of the Kazakhstan Metropolitan District in Moscow

July 28, 2024 – the 5th week after Pentecost; a celebration in honor of the Equal-to-the-Apostles Grand Prince Vladimir, in Holy Baptism Vasily.

On the feast of St. Prince Vladimir, in the countries of the canonical presence of the Russian Orthodox Church, a memorable date is traditionally celebrated – the Day of the Baptism of Rus'.

A festive Divine Liturgy was held in the Church of the Holy Martyrs Vera, Nadezhda, Lyubov and Sophia at the Patriarchal Metochion of the City of Moscow – Representative Office of the Metropolitan District of the Russian Orthodox Church in the Republic of Kazakhstan, led by Metropolitan Alexander of Astana and Kazakhstan.

The archpastor was assisted by the clergy of the metochion.

The staff of the Representative Office and the parishioners of the church prayed during the service.

The chants were performed by the parish choir under the direction of Anna Rozhnova.

At the fervent litany, special petitions were offered up, composed for the feast of the Baptism of Rus:

“Giving thanks with fear and trembling, as worthless servants, to Your mercy, our Savior and Master, O Lord, for Your blessings, which You have poured out on the Russian land from its Baptism until now, we fall down and bring praise to You as to God, and we tenderly cry out: deliver Your people from all troubles and always, as the Merciful One, fulfill our requests with good, we earnestly pray to You, hear and have mercy.

We also pray to Thee, O Lord Almighty, that Thou wouldst look upon and strengthen this vineyard, which Thou hast planted and which Thou hast preserved from all the attacks of the enemy, and in the years to come grant peace and tranquility to Thy inheritance, that Holy Rus', which Thou hast chosen as Thy dwelling place, may not be diminished or shaken, that Thy Thrice-holy Name may be glorified in it, we all say, O Lord, hear us speedily and have mercy.

Having given us Thy commandment to love Thee, our God and our neighbor, do so that hatred, enmity, insults and other iniquities may cease, and true love may reign in our hearts, we pray Thee, our Savior, hear us mercifully and have mercy speedily."

The Liturgy ended with the glorification of the Equal-to-the-Apostles Prince Vladimir. The head of the Metropolitan District offered a special prayer for the feast of the Baptism of Rus:

“Our Almighty and Eternal God, Father of the Lord God and our Savior Jesus Christ, Who is the Creator of the whole world, and the providence and blessing of all creation. Who also guided the ruler of the Russian Land, Prince Vladimir, to the light of the true faith, and thereby enlightened all our countries existing on this earth with holy Baptism and adorned the heaven of our Church with a host of saints, as with bright stars. Look now with Your merciful eye upon us, Your humble and unworthy servants, and upon our prayer of thanksgiving for all the good deeds that have been in it from ancient years to the present, and upon Your field, the Russian Church and our Fatherland, who bring to You, as the fruit of the saving sowing of Your Word, the faces of the saints. Grant us also to remain in their faith, love and unity, to overcome destructive divisions and schisms, that Thy Good Spirit may rest upon us. Continue, O Most Merciful Lord, to show Thy mercy to those who know Thee and to those who do not know Thee, that from the rising of the sun to the setting of the sun all peoples with one mouth and one heart may exclaim to Thee with the voice of joy: Glory to Thee, God, the Benefactor, who has enlightened Rus' with baptism, forever and ever." The head of the Orthodox Church of Kazakhstan was congratulated on the 14th anniversary of his elevation to the rank of Metropolitan by the clergy and staff of the Representative Office.

"The life of the Baptist of Rus', preserved in historical detail in the chronicles by the Venerable Nestor, Metropolitan Hilarion of Kiev and the monk Jacob of the Caves, is precious to everyone who considers themselves a faithful child of the Russian Orthodox Church, regardless of their nationality, language, culture or place of residence. "It is worthy of wonder," writes the Venerable Nestor the Chronicler about Prince Vladimir in the Tale of Bygone Years, "how much good he did for the Russian land by baptizing it. We, Christians, do not give him the honors equal to his deed. For if he had not baptized us, then even now we would still be in the devil's delusion." Having made a spiritual, cultural and civilizational choice in favor of Byzantine Orthodoxy, having created the foundations of the synthesis of the religious faith of the Greeks with the national characteristics of the spiritual structure of the Slavic, Finno-Ugric and Turkic tribes, Prince Vladimir once and for all laid the cultural code of the countries of the Russian World, which turned out to be indestructible, despite all the painful trials, and the breakdown of which would mean a terrible catastrophe in human history. The faithful Baptizer of Rus' shows us in his life the greatness of the transforming power of God. "Even if he had previously been in vile lustful desires, he later strove for repentance, according to the word of the apostle: "Where sin abounds, grace abounds," the Chronicler tells us. "The first years of Vladimir's life and reign are not comforting, as the deeds of a man who had languished in the darkness of paganism, which does not soften the heart," the 19th-century spiritual writer A. N. Muravyov comments on the life of Prince Vladimir before his baptism. But "the Word of God is alive and active" (Heb. 4:12), and yesterday's zealous and voluptuous pagan becomes a true Christian, not in words but in deeds following the Gospel covenants. "Vladimir the idolater," says Saint Nicholas of Serbia, "was transformed into a Christian saint. As if the image of a demon had been erased from some mysterious wall and an Angel had been inscribed!" The spiritual rebirth of Prince Vladimir is a vivid testimony of the healing effect of Divine grace, which is capable of radically changing human nature through repentance, a strong proof that the moral transformation of the individual "what is impossible with man is possible with God" (Luke 18:27). "What a consolation such a person as he is for each of us - sinful, weak - when we see that a person like us was able to discover God, and so deeply, so amazingly change in everything," reflects Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh. According to the words of St. John Chrysostom: "The monuments of the saints are not graves, tombs, pillars and inscriptions, but good deeds, zeal for faith and a pure conscience before God." The main monument to the Equal-to-the-Apostles Prince Vladimir is the holy Orthodox faith, accepted and beloved by him with all his heart, and passed on to you and me. He prayed about this during the baptism of his people in the Dnieper font: "Great God, who created heaven and earth, turn your gaze to your new people; grant them, O Lord, to know you, the true God, and establish in them the true faith." Having accepted the apostolic faith, Prince Vladimir fully realized that he is the key moment of the entire spiritual life of a Christian, the core of the Gospel moral theology. These are two commandments - love for God and love for one's neighbor, on which "all the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments" (Matthew 22:40). "I cannot describe his many mercies," the Pechersk monk Jacob marvels at the virtues of the prince, "both in cities and in villages, everywhere he showed mercy, clothing the naked, feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, giving rest to wanderers; honoring church ministers, and loving, and having mercy; gave them what they needed, the poor, the orphans, the widows, the blind, the lame, the suffering, he had mercy on all, and clothed, and fed, and gave drink." Equal-to-the-Apostles Prince Vladimir teaches us that there cannot and should not be a division in our religious life between the doctrinal, theoretical part, and the practical fulfillment of the commandments. Contemplating with spiritual eyes the Sacrifice of Christ, seeing His condescension in love for man "by becoming obidient to death, even death on the cross" (Phil. 2:8), we can understand that love is, first of all, the ability to give oneself to others. As the Primate of our Church, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill, said in one of his sermons: “The readiness to give oneself and part of one’s life, time, care, money, human warmth and participation to another is a manifestation of love – not beautiful words, but the ability to share one’s life with another.” Carefully preserving Holy Orthodoxy, loving the Church of Christ, studying ourselves and passing on to our children the foundations of the apostolic and patristic faith, and, of course, living according to the laws of evangelical love and truth – these are the main covenants left to us by the great and faithful Prince Vladimir.” From the speech of Metropolitan Alexander on the day of remembrance of the Equal-to-the-Apostles Prince Vladimir.